The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 4 Review

If you can't even bother to care, Walking Dead, how can you expect me?

Enter Ezekial, and his morning mantra. It takes work to look this good.

Cut to a bunch of randos, doing a bunch of rando things.

Ezekial looks from a window and tries to remember even one of their names (he can't).

"God, all these people blend together. That one...is, uh, Shmichael."

The FX team justifies their paychecks with a lingering shot of Tony the Tiger for what seems like too long.

There are way too many kids here. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY KIDS?

"Is everyone out in the open? Good. Kids, gather round. Everyone stand nice and still to make the snipers job easier."

Sappy violin music or not, you have not given me NEARLY enough reason to give half a zombified shit about these people - Not counting Jerry of course. Ezekial gives ANOTHER SPEECH, although I guess technically this is his first speech since this is clearly a scene from the past .... which brings me to the main point: I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY ARE DOING THIS AGAIN.

So far this season has been everything WRONG with The Walking Dead; constant monologuing from the bloated cast of tertiary characters, thrillless shootouts that drag on forever with few consequences to the overall progress of the plot, timeline fuckery to fill out a 42 minute runtime that would be too obviously hapdash with linear storytelling, epic music swells in place of actual human characterization to pull at the heart strings ... It's tiring. If anyone still watches this show while NOT checking social media on their phone at the same time, I'll eat my hat.

Anyway, back to the thrilling speech from Mr. Off-off-off Broadway.

HOLY SHIT I TAKE IT ALL BACK.

The sniper fucking DEMOLISHED Ezekial's group. Zeeks pulls himself out from the dead bodies and crawls around, CERTAIN that those giant gaping bullet holes couldn't have been fatal for EVERYone.

"Wake up, Shmichael!"

I guess Ezekial was under those bodies for a while because not only does the sniper go for a lunch break but OH NO EVERYONE IS TURNING INTO A ZOMBIE AT THE SAME TIME. What a comedy of errors!

Ezekial is low on ammo and health bars, lucky for him some NPCs rock up to blow off some zombie heads. Literally none of that matters because--

WHERE.

IS.

JERRY?

Meanwhile, Carol fucking Ceiling Cat's her way to a 5 person kill streak.

ALWAYS double tap, to be sure.

She escapes the next round when the incoming Saviors let her go in favor of the dropped guns. Ezekial's pal isn't so lucky as he is shot in the back by a 1980's serial killer.

"Your skin will make a great lamp shade! Oh god, is that racist?"

So Ed Brains here lays out his plan so the viewers get clued in - he wants Ezekial to help bring the Big Guns over to the Sanctuary so they can get rid of the Walkers that have overrun the entryway. I suppose he is a bargaining chip to use with Rick and Maggie's group, but while we are on that topic let me bring up something that has been bothering me.

Negan gave specific orders (as told by Morales last episode) to not kill Rick, Maggie, and Ezekial. WHY? I get that it's better to beat the alpha dog into submission so he can continue his lead over his group while being subservient to you, but when it is clear that dog will not give up his revenge boner isn't it best to put the thing down? Rick has told Negan multiple times that it doesn't matter what Negan does, Rick is going to kill him. Ezekial and Maggie's group have taken up arms against the Saviors. At this point, it has to be clear that Negan's old method of killing a member of a new group to show the others he means business isn't working and if he wants to continue his way of life the ONLY option is to cut off the three heads of this snake. I keep emailing Negan and he will not get back to me.

Back to the show. If you want something done, get a Carol to do it.

"I'm aging too gracefully for this shit."

Ezekial takes his shot with Ed Brains and gets pistol whipped. And then... this dude wipes his blood on Ezekials face? What is happening?

That's not even the weirdest part. Check out what Ezekial and this Savior were facing down at the start of this interaction.

That is SO MANY zombies VERY close to you. And yet between Ed Brains shooting the closest one, Zeeks going for the sword, Ed smearing his blood on Zeeks face...over a minute has passed. There was no slow-mo, no cut aways, it was a full minute of bullshit while a horde bares down on these two men who couldn't be fucking bothered.

No, no, that's fine. No rush.

Ok, fuck, at this point Carol is pinned down behind a car while some Saviors shoot aimlessly at her. This has to stop. This is the least suspenseful action shot in the world; Carol is not going to be shot dead by some D grade background characters, alone where no one can leverage her death for an emotional performance. We are just biding time until either A: Carol pulls some hero shit, or B: Rick and/or Daryl pulls some hero shit. Who the fuck cares about these assholes filling a Volvo with speed-holes?

At least this episode is keeping the story contained; Carol is doing her meaningless bullshit while Ezekial is being dragged into his meaningless bullshit. Ed Brains takes the shirt of Zeeks' back to fling over the barbedwire and climb the fence. Instead of bringing him back alive, Ed reasons Negan would be happy with just Ezekials head to display outside the walls of the Sanctuary. Taking his sweet ass time, Ed raises the sword to strike the killing blow and...

GREATEST SHOW ON TELEVSION. 1 MILLION OUT OF 1 MILLION STARS.

And back to Carol, ugh. So she grabs one of the Saviors and uses him as a meatshield, but of course the other Saviors don't give a shit so they just keep firing hundreds of rounds in Carol's general vicinity. They manage to kill their comrad and not hear Carol opening up the gate to unleash the waiting zombies on them. They are just standing their firing limited bullets into the side of a sedan.

Back to my precious Jerry. Jerry, selflessly, is trying to get Ezekial out of harms way, but he busts his axe in the process. Never backing down from a fight, as the zombie masses approach he tells his king to seek shelter behind his mighty back. The king declines and the two brothers in arms face the horde in a melee, outnumbered. Suddenly, Carol shoots the zombies and it's fine, whatever.

What happens next may be one of the strangest sequences in a long while; in all it's time on the air, I'm not sure we've ever had a high speed car chase on The Walking Dead. But, here it is! They've already bashed people's heads in with bats, split people in half with battle axes, amputated limbs and chewed out someone's jugular so where else can they go but the open road. It's Indiana Jones on a cable budget - it's serviceable.

You know what's NOT serviceable?

This is The Walking Dead's "Sand Snakes" scene. Holy moly, this was the best take?

Anyway, the trio find themselves in a shallow riverbed fending off the undead. While Ezekial breaks down and confesses he shares no blood with the royal family, Shiva comes charging in to save the day!

OH GOD DAMN IT. They "Summer"ed Shiva.

They return to the Kingdom, and Bowlcut has to come waddling down with a dumb look on his face.

"Btw there is no Santa."

Overall, not a terrible episode - certainly better than the previous. Still though, this war is slow going and the show seems too skiddish to really put their main cast in danger. Whoever thought it was smart to not have Negan in any of the last three episodes need to be split in half with an axe.